They disagree on pension reform. However, after several months of complicated negotiations, and at the end of the 11th negotiation session, the Medef and the unions found a draft agreement on Friday February 10 to simplify and extend the sharing of profits to employees, in particular in small businesses.
The president of Medef Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux greeted Sunday February 12 in a interview at Figaro the “maturity” of the unions with which the French employers’ negotiators found this draft agreement. “We are currently in disagreement on the pension reform, but on this essential subject of the sharing of value, where the initial positions were diametrically opposed, we demonstrate that we know how to discuss”, indicated Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, welcoming a text “founder”.
At the invitation of the government, employers and unions have been working on this subject since November 2022. As reminded The echoes, the framework letter sent by the Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, to the social partners asked them to “facilitate and generalize” for all employees at least one value-sharing system. This sharing of profits “still appears insufficient in view of the interest of the existing mechanisms in terms of loyalty, encouragement, gratification and alignment of interests”, can we read in the draft agreement.
Currently, there is participation (a compulsory profit redistribution mechanism in companies with more than 50 employees) and profit-sharing (an optional bonus linked to results or non-financial performance), which come with tax advantages.
Medef, CPME and U2P on the employers’ side and the CGT, CFDT, FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC unions presented a text to “make the existing systems more accessible” and “continue to simplify the profit-sharing, participation and employee share ownership and enhance their attractiveness”. It aims in particular to widely generalize mechanisms such as profit-sharing, participation and value-sharing bonuses to all companies with more than 11 employees.
The new text provides that companies between 11 and 49 employees and which are profitable – those whose net profit represents at least 1% of turnover for three consecutive years – “put in place at least a mechanism” for sharing the value from January 1, 2025. Companies with less than 11 employees “have the possibility” of sharing the profits with their employees. In those of more than 50 employees, participation will have to “better take into account” the results “achieved in France and presenting an exceptional character as defined by the employer”. If the formula is largely symbolic, this could make it possible to respond to the controversies over “superprofits”.
According to Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, this draft agreement is a “big step forward” for smaller companies, which will “benefit many employees”. “In a small company, everything that is imposed does not have the same impact as in a large one,” he explained.
There are many obstacles among very small, small and medium-sized enterprises (VSEs and SMEs). These include, for example, the complexity and lack of knowledge of the systems, the lack of support, the complex calculation formula for participation, administrative risks, etc. And this despite the relaxations already decided in the Pacte law of 2019 and that of the summer of 2022 on purchasing power.
According to the statistical department of the Ministry of Labor (Dares), 88.5% of employees of companies with more than 1,000 people benefited from a value-sharing scheme in 2020, compared to less than 20% in those with less than 50. employees.
Unions and employers had little choice but to come to an agreement so as not to lose control. In the fall of 2022, in fact, the debate had heated up against a backdrop of the debate on “superprofits” and inflation. A binding law “during the quinquennium” was announced last fall. At the beginning of January 2023, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, promised “concrete proposals”, while Renaissance will hold a convention on the sharing of value on February 20. If the government defends the track of an employee dividend to compensate for the erosion of purchasing power by inflation, the signatories of the draft agreement reached on Friday “undertake not to support” this concept.
This compromise was far from certain. Three weeks ago, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux spoke of an “impossible negotiation”. But “we are proving that social democracy works at a time when parliamentary democracy is not giving the best example”, judged the boss of Medef with Figaro. “We have come a long way”, also estimated Luc Mathieu, national secretary of the CFDT.
“The agreement should be signed by a majority of unions,” welcomed Friday Hubert Mongon, the general delegate of the UIMM, head of the employers’ delegation. However, we will have to wait a little longer to confirm this. National trade union bodies must now decide whether or not to sign the agreement. At this stage, FO said it was in favor and the CFDT “not unfavorable”. The other unions (CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT) remain reserved. The agreement is open for signature until February 22.
